Landscape design

Landscape design

Dior and the British nobility

Alessandro Martini e Maurizio Francesconi

A major exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London examines the relationship between the great French couturier and the United Kingdom

Nothing is as valuable as the English honorific title of “Dame”, and Dame Margot Fonteyn – the most famous ballerina in the United Kingdom – was the owner of one of the dream dresses displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London as part of the exhibition Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams (through 14 July 2019)

Exhibitions dedicated to Dior (1905-1957) have been numerous and frequent in recent years (the 2017 one at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris was incredibly successful and unforgettable), and therefore it seemed almost impossible to produce one that wouldn’t bore the public, but the V&A managed to give an unexpected twist to this umpteenth exhibition on the couturier who made every woman dream.

The curator Oriole Cullen sidestepped the possibility of another exhibition about the semi-mythical New Look, deciding instead to focus on Dior’s infatuation with the world of the British nobility and its family estates, and with British culture more generally. So there are, among others, Fonteyn’s dress and the one worn by Princess Margaret on the day of her twenty-first birthday party (immortalized in a portrait by Cecil Beaton).

But the exhibition is not limited to Monsieur Dior, it also explores the subsequent decades, and the designers who over the years have been at the helm of the fashion house. Up to the Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri, the current creative director of the august house.

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
Curated by Oriole Cullen
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
2 February – 14 July 2019

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